Holm, Stef Ann (28 page)

He
thought back to the question she'd asked him: Why had he quit baseball? He'd
wanted to tell her, to take her into his confidence.

But
there was nothing anybody could do to change things. No matter how hard Alex
tried, he couldn't revive Joe. And he would have given anything—
anything
—to
bring him back. In body. In mind. In spirit.

"Hey,
busher."

Alex
froze. His heartbeat tripped, then surged; his blood grew hot in his veins.
Slowly, he glanced over his shoulder. Nobody was there. Who in the hell was he
expecting? Joe McGill?

It
was just like Joe to play a trick on him. To make him think one thing and do
another, to make him want to shove his fist in his chops and kick his ass— and
maybe have his ass kicked in return. That was the way of things between them
because they'd both been bruised by the other at the plate and on the field,
starting with the first day Joe batted in a Giant's uniform. He'd ripped a
pitch right at the mound and shot the ball into Alex's shoulder. The injury
benched him for a couple of weeks. Intentional or not, that incident had set up
seasons of antagonism.

"Cordova,
if you can't play the game stay the hell off the field."

Alex
shot his chin around, his gaze darting across the wall. There were open
lockers, closed lockers, clothes on the floor, bats and balls in buckets and
tall boxes, towels, water pitchers.

No
Joe.

Facing
forward, he was assailed with a sense of relief. He shouldn't feel that way.
Grief should have torn at his heart. But it didn't. His heart pulsed and his
blood flowed, strongly and without the usual tightening in his throat. A weight
had lifted from his shoulders. Somehow, it just felt easier to breathe. His
awareness of the sensations was so acute, it was almost a physical pain. And
with the tenseness eased in his body, he allowed himself to mentally prepare to
pitch.

He
was going to win today.

Because
Joe McGill understood why he had to. Even though he wasn't in the room, he was
here. He'd been with Alex since the day of the accident. In his thoughts.
Words. What he did. Why he did things.

And
oddly, Alex's decision to do his best came from Camille. She was good at
standing up for what she believed in. He could do no less. By failing himself
and the team, he failed her.

It
was time to either get into the game, or get out.

"Gentlemen,
I'm going to bring the lineup to the umpires." Camille's voice broke into
Alex's thoughts. "Let's make the best of things, shall we?"

Then
she left.

Alex
looked at the group of men shuffling on their feet and taking their own good time
getting ready.

"We're
going to win today's game," he said, tucking the tails of his shirt into
his pants.

Charlie,
cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, asked, "How do you know
that, Cordova?"

"Because
we owe her. After what she did in the restaurant."

"Well,
that's a nice thought." Doc buttoned his jersey. "But when we win,
it's not like we really set out to do it. I think we get lucky, that's
all."

"Yeah,
that's right." Specs squinted. His new glasses didn't seem to be working.

Alex
went to the small desk, grabbed the box on it and lifted the lid. It was
Camille's and he knew what was in it. "Today we'll do things her way. And
I mean everything."

He
fingered the packages of Chiclets and began to toss them out to the players.
"No sneaking tobacco. We'll do the music thing where we pass the ball to
one another with that two-step crap. Bones, wear your shoe inserts. Specs,
plaster a different pair of glasses on your nose."

Specs
grunted. "I like this pair."

Yank
chuckled. "That pair wouldn't help you find the foul line if you were
standing on it."

"Shut
up, Yank."

"Both
of you put a lid on it," Alex directed. "Cupid, make sure you put a
lot of liniment on your head. Maybe we can piss off Cy and he'll throw a punch—
get himself ejected from the game."

"I
don't want the Cyclone hitting me in the head," Cupid objected.

"Then
duck if you see his fist coming at you." Alex reached for the basket
containing their luck charms, remedy bottles, and the other essentials that
fueled their phobias. Alex, though, had never once relied on any of that stuff.
He always counted on himself to pull him through a game.

"Take
all this sludge and make it work for you." He held the basket out.
"Other than that, I don't know what else we can do."

"We
could pray," Deacon said, his cap low over his eyes.

"Yeah,
we haven't tried that." Yank had shoved the entire package of gum into his
mouth and talked around the wad in his cheek.

Cub
snorted. "Why would the Lord listen to anything we have to say?"

"
'Cause we're asking," Doc said. "He'll listen to anyone who
asks."

Alex
took up his cap, grabbed his bat, and went toward the door. "Do what you
have to do."

Then
he went outside. He'd done all his praying when Captain was in the hospital.
And it hadn't done any good.

He
put more faith in Bones's string of rabbits' feet.

* * * * *

"Mr.
Regal man," Cy Young called to Alex with a mocking tip of his cap.

Alex
shot back, "How's the farm,
Denton?"

Cy's
face grew red from being called his given name and having his Ohio country
roots mentioned. "Same as it always was, Regal. Doing well. Just like my
pitching. Not like yours, which is in the crapper."

Camille
listened to the exchange between the Somerset player and Alex Cordova. Alex
wasn't amused. In fact, he glowered and would have probably fired off an
obscenity if she hadn't been standing beside him.

"You're
going to wonder why you can't hit the ball today, rube," Alex said.
"Because the Keystones are winning this game."

Cy
smirked. "What are you going to do? Knock my head off like you knocked off—"

Alex
tackled Cy to the ground before he could finish his sentence. Their fists
flailed and some punches landing. Dust clouded the air. Camille shot to her
feet, but her call to stop went unheeded. It was the umpire who broke them
apart and sent them to their respective benches to cool off.

Sitting
beside Alex, Camille looked at him as he pressed a wet towel on the corner of
his mouth.

"What
was that all about?" she asked.

"Winning."
His eyes narrowed across the field to where Cy sat in the Somersets' dugout.
"I'm going to beat him pitching today."

Camille
was taken aback by Alex's sudden confidence. "Are you really going to beat
him?" she asked, gazing into his face, her breath catching as it had a way
of doing when his brown eyes peered directly into hers.

"Watch
me." Alex snagged his glove and jogged out to the pitcher's mound.

Camille
observed her players, taking notations. The Huntington Avenue Grounds, newly constructed
this year, had opened in May, with railroad tracks along the full advertisement
wall behind first base. In back of third base, tall offices and warehouses
sprung up, some as tall as ten stories. The ballpark, built on a former circus
lot, had patches of sand in the outfield where grass wouldn't grow.

There
was a toolshed in the far middle of center field, and as the Somersets took the
outfield, the players grabbed rakes and groomed the ground around their
positions to give their spiked shoes more grip on pebbleless dirt.

Outraged
by the unfairness, Camille went to her feet to have a word with the umpire
behind home plate.

Walking
toward him, she called out. "Mr.... er—"

But
she stopped, having to think a moment to make sure she didn't call him Catfish.
It didn't help that his name had an aquatic sound to it. If she addressed him
incorrectly, he'd take her out of the game. Just that one word,
Catfish,
and
you were ejected. He was quite sensitive about it. Probably because he had
rather prominent lips, and because when he'd call a ball or a strike he'd let a
fine spray of spit fly from his mouth. It gave the general impression of a
catfish.

"Uh,
Mr...." She'd reached him now, and he gazed at her with quiet reprobation
in his eyes. Then his name came to her. "Mr. Carpio, I find this display
of raking the dirt unacceptable."

"On
what grounds?" Boomer Hurley, the Somersets' manager, asked with a guffaw
as he drew up to them. "Get it? Grounds. As in dirt."

"I
get it, Mr. Hurley," she remarked tightly. Her second meeting of the man
was fast proving to be just as antagonizing as the first.

"The
Somersets always rake their dirt between innings," Mr. Carpio declared.

"Then
I propose the Keystones have the same advantage." She looked at her team
members, who sat on the bench, waiting for her to tell them what to do. Noodles
was next to bat, but she'd held him back until a decision could be made about
the rakes.

"Did
you bring your own rakes?" The tobacco lump in Boomer's cheek put a lisp
in his words. He spit. "The Keystones can't use the property of the
Somersets."

Mr.
Carpio nodded his head in agreement. "You had the opportunity to even
things out."

"Of
course we didn't bring our own rakes, and to imply that it should have been a
consideration is ludicrous." She lifted her chin and spoke crisply.
"Mr. Carpio, this is very offensive to me and to the Keystones
organization. To all of baseball, for that matter. A manager can't make up
rules. And nowhere in the books does it say the home team has control of
rakes."

Mr.
Carpio pursed those fleshy lips of his, then looked at Camille and then at
Boomer—who inched one deviant brow up his forehead like a crook on the prowl
for something to steal.

"Miss
Kennison," Mr. Carpio stated judiciously, black fedora over his bald head,
"I can't force Mr. Hurley into sharing his rakes. They are official
property of the Somersets."

In
a silent standoff, Boomer sardonically grinned at her, to the point of
gloating. She fought the urge to sneer.

Without
another word, she resumed her seat. It was horrid. It was vulgar. It was
baseball wearing its worst face. The home team was getting away with something
that was unfair. Her father would have lambasted Mr. Carpio with language that
would have gotten him severely fined, if not thrown from the ballpark. Were she
to do such a thing, he'd probably be proud. Camille wondered if spouting a mild
oath would make her feel better.

On
the bench, she gave it a polite try mumbling beneath her breath, "The big
dumb stiff."

Reclining
next to her, one leg out in a long and lean stretch, Alex commented, "I
would have said worse."

"I
know."

He
laughed, the sound rich and deep-timbred.

She
grew aware of how close he sat—not indecently so, but just near enough to have
his muscular thigh meet the material of her skirt. Just enough to have her
sleeve lightly skim over the outline of his hard biceps as she raised her hand
to shade her eyes. She saw the field, but she didn't see it. She could smell
the soap Alex had used this morning, a woodsy masculine scent that jumbled her
senses and made her almost forget what she was doing.

"Noodles,
go out there and hit a home run," she mumbled, not putting much emphasis
into her words. They seemed wasted on a team that was always the underdog—not
even granted the courtesy of rakes. Much to her surprise, though, Alex had
pitched a fine first inning. Only one man had gottened a hit off him, but the
man hadn't scored because of great fielding from Cupid. Alex had struck out the
rest up to bat. He looked like the Alex she'd seen at his wood shop. Virile and
dominant. In prime form.

Her
advice to Noodles had been given in near jest. In the twenty-eight games they
had played since she'd taken over, he'd gotten a few hits, but not a single
home run or even a double. He never beat the ball to second, and it seemed he
was chronically out at first even if he hit a bobble that rolled into third
base territory.

So
when he stood and took his first strike, it didn't surprise her. Nor did the
second. As he positioned himself for the third pitch, he dug his spikes into
the dirt, but then he held his hands up to call time. She sat forward,
wondering if there was a problem. But he gave her a quick gaze and a nod, then
reached into his back pocket. His hand withdrew a package of Chiclets. He
tipped his head back and poured the tiny candy-gum pieces into his mouth; then
he stuffed the wrapper back into his pocket.

Carpio
fined for littering. He wouldn't fine for illegal rake use, but he'd get you on
a trash violation.

The
fans booed and hissed at Noodles, waving him off and jeering at him. Their
laughter and mockery made Camille angry. Noodles took his stance again and Cy
fired a knuckleball. Noodles took a swing. It sounded like he was hitting a
squash when the tip made contact and sent the ball sailing high. Higher. Over
the backfield wall.